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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Cleveland Ranked Best Place to Be When the World Ends

As hurricanes shred the coast, tornadoes upend the prairie, and wildfires scorch the west, we here in Mother Nature’s bosom are left to ponder more pressing matters such as the source of our next beverage.Yes, when it comes to meteorological calamity, the Forest City is as reliable as they come. And weather geeks are taking notice.

Jeff Opperman, a senior adviser at the Nature Conservancy, has completed a study ranking the top 50 U.S. cities in terms of resilience to climate change. And you, dear reader, are a winner yet again. In fact, the study’s top five cities read like a grand tour of the glorious Rust Belt: Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago, and Minneapolis. Opperman attributes this to the region’s proximity to the Great Lakes and the low likelihood of hurricanes or flooding, at least till Antarctica melts.

And lest you doubt Mother Nature’s gift for vengeance, the study also found that the city most likely to perish in a fiery ball of apocalyptic misery is ... Miami. Ringless and doomed ain’t the way to go.